What’s in a Name?

The information available on the internet is amazing. As one who has been back in God’s country for less than 10 years, I’m still re-learning the structure of high school sports leagues and schools in this state. To enhance my understanding, and to get away from “the Jake Heaps circus,” I decided to educate myself further. Much of what I learned I gleaned from the informative WIAA website. School mascots were a little harder to research until, part way through the process, I found Marc Sheehan’s list on the web. Marc’s site saved me a great deal of time. My efforts left me with a fountain of information on high school athletics. I’m smarter than when I began the process, but this newly gained knowledge also left me amused.

First, the reason I started this search. I discovered that there are 383 high schools in this state that have athletic teams. Additionally, there are 22 schools that don’t meet WIAA’s conditions for formal acceptance. 78 high schools meet the enrollment and other requirements to be classified as a 4A school, the highest such classification in Washington State. 68 Schools are classified as 3A; 55 as 2A; 63 as 1A; 66 as 2B. 59 schools fit into the 1B category set out for the smallest of the small. All pretty boring stuff, I know, but the important thing to realize here is that the categories all have close to the same number of schools and that classification adjustments take place every year as schools grow or shrink in attendance. It is also noteworthy that some teams are placed in leagues with schools in higher or lower divisions because of their proximity or past affiliations.

Loaded with a clearer understanding of leagues and what the classifications are all about I decided to delve a little deeper. There had to be something interesting about my quest for knowledge. Mascots, I thought — school mascots. What could be more enlightening than that? Maybe there would be a little fun here. I suppose this is where I should mention that the following information is provided strictly for my amusement and is not meant to belittle any school or team. I also don’t claim that it is 100% accurate but it is as correct as my tabulations on a legal yellow pad permitted.

To get started, I divided up school mascots in eight separate categories: Birds, Cats, Dogs, Bears, Native Americans, Non- Native American People, Miscellaneous Animals and Miscellaneous Others (mascots that don’t fit in any of the other categories). Looking at the list in total, this seemed to make the most sense.

Non-Native American People

My first discovery was that more mascots fit in my Non-Native American People category than any other. There were 119 schools that have chosen mascots that fit in this group. There were, for example, 13 teams named Vikings, 10 named Knights, 7 Pirates, 7 Spartans, 6 Trojans and 5 Crusaders. Crusaders, by the way, was popular with private religious schools. No other nickname in this group has been selected by more than 4 teams. There were a lot of mascot names used by only one school. Noted examples were the Camas Papermakers, the Blaine Borderites and the Ridgefield Spudders, all pretty straight forward I thought given their locations (that’s before I found that Ridgefield wasn’t near Idaho but maybe it has nearby potato fields). Digging a little deeper into this group, however, provided a wealth of entertainment. Where to start — how about with the Chimacum Cowboys? I’ve driven through that pleasant looking little town many times on my way to the Hood Canal floating bridge. Never once have I seen a cowboy. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought that a school claiming to be “Cowboys” would be in Eastern Washington. But more interestingly, the town of Chimacum sits squarely on the site of an ancient Indian village. In the movies of my youth, cowboys and Indians were always fighting each other. I wonder how the Indians buried in the graves of Chimacum feel about the schoo’s nickname? If you didn’t like that one, how about the Lincoln High School Abes? Clever, right? Then doesn’t it follow that the Eisenhower High School sports teams should be the “Ikes,” rather than the Cadets? It’s a little troubling to know that there more Devils (4 — two red, one blue and one plain) than Saints (2). One final example of schools in this category is private: Charles Wright Academy, located in Tacoma. Their school nickname is “Tarriers.” What were they going for here I wondered? Armed with Google and my trusty Webster’s Dictionary I searched for insight. I came up with three possibilities. First, there is the definition of the word tarry — to linger, etc. But then I discovered that “tarriers” was actually a word. It means: of, like or smeared with tar. Could this be what they were going for? On Google, two further possibilities surfaced. The “Tarriers” were a 50′s era musical group. Additionally, I found that “tarriers” was used to describe workers drilling holes in rocks to blast out railroad tunnels. I suppose I could just phone the school and ask what Tarriers meant to them, but that wouldn’t be nearly as much fun as speculating. Finally, I put the Waterville High School Shockers in this category but I’m not certain this is where they belong. I had a feeling that Shockers was chosen by the Waterville student body because they wanted to SHOCK the world. No other definition makes sense.

Cats and Dogs

The next categories that I’d like to explore are: Cats and Dogs. I chose to tackle them together because I was intrigued that there were more (70) different teams named after various types of cats than there were dogs (38). Isn’t the dog man’s best friend? Strange. Equally fascinating to me was that 10 schools chose Cougar as their mascot and only two picked Husky. What that says about any UW versus WSU allegiance I can only guess at. In the Cats column, 13 schools chose to be Lions,13 Panthers, and 13 Tigers — while there was only one Bobcat, Lynx, Puma, Leopard or Tigercat (whatever that is). On the Dog side of the ledger, Bulldogs reigned with 15 schools choosing that moniker. The only other Dogs in the conversation were the seven Wolves, and the four Wolverines (maybe the wolverine doesn’t belong here but it’s where I assigned it, so deal with it). There were, however, three Coyotes and one Koyote (Kahlotus High School Koyotes).

Birds

Let’s take a look at Bird nicknames next. There were 63 of these. The overwhelming winner in this category is (drum roll) Eagles. There are 24 schools with the nickname Eagles — the most of any other nickname in any category. Coming in a distant second overall were the Bulldogs mentioned above. Other popular birds were the Falcon (8), Cardinals (6) and the Hawks (5). There were 2 Thunderbirds and one T-Bird. I’m guessing that these three schools weren’t named after the automobile of the same name and therefore should be properly placed in the Bird category. I thought it a little funny that there were two Golden Eagles but no Bald Eagles, our national bird; but, after a little thought, what high school kid wants to be associated with anything bald? The only other thing that stood out in the Bird group were the two Blackhawks. I didn’t know whether they more properly belonged here or with the Native-Americans. I apologize if I picked incorrectly.

Native Americans

In these days of Political Correctness, I was surprised to find that there were still at least 28 1/2 schools who have chosen to retain Native-American nicknames. Maybe Ive been a little too generous in placing schools in this category. Do the Red Raiders belong somewhere else? There were two big winners in the Native-American group. Eleven schools were Warriors and eight were Indians. I guess I should explain the half I gave to this group. Marysville-Pillchuck is known as the Tomahawks. After a great deal of thought, I decided to split them between the Native-American group and the Miscellaneous Others.

Bears

I thought I’d take a crack at the Bear bunch next. 17 schools are named after some type of bear. Not surprisingly, I suppose, the leader in this category is, Bears. Five schools chose that nickname. Right behind are four Grizzlies, three Bruins and two Kodiaks. That only leaves one Cub and the two strange entries in this group. First were the Bearcats. I was about to divide this up between the Bear and Cat group when I discovered that Bearcat was another name for the Binturong, a vivverid mammal from Southeast Asia. I wonder how many people in Monroe know about the Binturong. I also dont believe it belongs in the Bear group but I still like it there so it will remain. The final entry in the Bear group is the Taholah High School Chitwhins. What in the world is a Chitwhin? The most popular guess was that it was some type of bird. Nope, after a little research I found that Chitwhin is the Quinault word for black bear. Mystery solved. How many of you knew that?

Miscellaneous Animals

There were 32 mascots that didn’t fit in the Cats, Dogs, Bears or Birds categories. That’s why I created the Miscellaneous Animal group. Two are fish, a Piranha and a Shark. There were seven Mustangs, six Rams, 3 Beavers and 2 Dragon. There was one Gator and one Golden Gator. After that there were Billy Goats, Jackrabbits, Gorillas, Mules, etc. but no other nickname in this group was used by more than one school.
Miscellaneous Others

Finally, there are16 1/2 school nicknames that didn’t fit in any other category so they wound up in the Miscellaneous Other group. The half was the result of my quandary over the use of Tomahawk. There were two Rockets, two Comets and 2 Totems (I wonder if Totems should be in the Native-American group?) in this category. No other name was used more than once. Weather seemed to be the big draw. There was a Lightning, a Thunder, a Storm, a Sun, a Light, a Tornado and a Tide. Then there were the North Beach Hyaks. What in the world is a Hyak? My dictionary and Google were no help. Finally, stymied and unable to come up with anything clever, I broke down and called the school. A Hyak, I was told was a “flying foot.” Mystery solved, I think. Two other schools also stood out to me in this group. First, I wondered about the Mansfield High School Kernels. I supposed that was a reference to kernels of corn — but maybe not. Webster’s says that a kernel is first a program that constitutes the central core of a computer operating system. Or, it is the soft edible part contained in a nut or the stone of a fruit. Later on down the list of meanings, a corn kernel is mentioned only briefly. I’ve saved my favorite for last. How many have heard of the mighty Northwest Yeshiva High School 613s? When I first saw them listed I thought there was a misprint. I certainly had no idea what a 613 was. If I had been Jewish or a little smarter, I might have known that 613 is a reference to the Laws of Moses. What could be more powerful than that? If for no other reason, learning about the 613s made this a worthwhile exercise.

I mentioned briefly about political correctness. Another push aimed at correctness was undertaken a few years ago when girls and women began to have an equal opportunity to play sports in school. Girls’ teams no longer wanted to be called Cowboys, for example, and changed the nicknames of their girls sports teams to Cowgirls. The Bridgeport High Mustangs (boys) and Fillies (girls) is another good example. Sometimes this conversion was easy. Sometimes it wasn’t. At the high school level there are a couple on examples on the list that maybe shouldn’t have been taken so literally. Do the Neah Bay Red Devils (boys) and Lady Reds (girls) even have the same connotation? If they do, then I certainly placed the Red Devils in the wrong category. How about the Pateros Billy Goats (boys) and Nannies (girls)? A girl Billy Goat is called a Nanny Goat. A Nanny is someone who watches (human) children. I guess R.A Long down in the southwest part of the state gets a little credit for coming up with Lumberjacks (boys) and Lumberjills (girls), though we all know we don’t have lumberjacks or Jills in this part of the country. As the son of a logger I know this to be a fact.

That completes my tour through the wacky world of Washington State High School mascots. If nothing else it was a fun exercise. I hope that I haven’t upset anyone by disparaging their favorite team. That was not my intent. I apologize again for any errors that may have occurred in this accounting. I tried to make it completely accurate. If I have failed, please let me know. Dick K.